Water fast

I tried a water fast yesterday and it went… ok. I’ll share the what, why, and how, and then some thoughts on what I might improve for next time.

What?

For some period of time, all you take in is water and supplements. No food. I did one day. Others go for longer, even a week+, but I have no desire to do that at the moment.

Why?

A few reasons. First, I wanted to see if it would help a bit with some of my head and neck issues, which I partially attribute to inflammation. Second, it’s said to trigger autophagy, which is probably hard to measure but is supposed to renew cells. Third, I may want to use this as a stepping stone to longer fasts. And last, I’m hoping to jumpstart my weight loss, which has stagnated some.

How?

As mentioned, all you take in is water and supplements. For my one day fast, it was suggested that I spent one day preparing for the fast, one day fasting, and then one day coming off the fast.

The day before (Thursday) I ate light, with nothing too difficult to digest. I had about 650 calories of food: a chopped onion and spinach egg white scramble, 2 more eggs scrambled, 4 small frozen meatballs (leftovers, too hard to resist), and a peanut butter sandwich. The last food in my body was around 9:30pm.

The day of (Friday), I drank 128oz of water (with added supplement) and ~12oz of green tea. Since you’re not getting sodium, potassium, and a few other minerals from food that day, adding a supplement to your water is said to stave off headaches and other aches. I sailed through most of the day and didn’t feel all that hungry… until the kids’ dinner was being prepared. The smells coming from the kitchen had me fantasizing “maybe I can just have something small? one scrambled egg? some broth?”, but I stayed strong. The pangs were gone by the time bedtime rolled around.

Today (Saturday) I’ve had two small containers of bone broth, a small egg white scramble, and shredded beef taco salad. In that order. The literature suggests coming off the fast slowly to prevent refeeding syndrome, but I wasn’t too worried after only a one day fast.

For next time

I may try again in two weeks, for two days, with some improvements:

1. The supplement adds a “taint” to the water that, at room temperature, I didn’t care for. It’s not bad, per se — it doesn’t taste like anything I can describe — but it makes drinking that much water a little less pleasant. It’s more tolerable when the water is chilled, so I want to get two water bottles going; one can be chilling in the freezer while I’m drinking the other.

2. Smoothies are said to be a reliable way to come off the fast, but I don’t have any smoothie game. Test some smoothies and find one I like.

3. Stay busy. I was alternating between a video game and an online course most of the day, which kept me distracted. Sometimes we eat just to have something to do.

4. Maybe the kids can eat takeout food on the patio those days. :)

Overall it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I wasn’t dying of hunger this morning, and while I made myself drink some broth when I woke up, I felt like I could’ve easily coasted until mid-afternoon before breaking fast. Maybe a two day water fast won’t be so bad.